OUR VIEW - For America’s sake, keep a civil tongue

Saturday

Sep 26, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2009 at 12:52 PM

In some ways, all the editorial hand-wringing over the state of civility in America is overwrought. Tennis star Serena Williams’ outburst wasn’t much different than a thousand other tirades we’ve seen from petulant athletes over the years. Rapper Kanye West’s upstaging of singer Taylor Swift at an awards show wasn’t out of line in a genre where arrogant behavior gives performers “street cred.” (Joe Wilson? We’ll get to him later.) And it’s not as if civility took a sudden downturn in America — it’s been sliding for years. In some cities, it’s the height of courtesy not to draw your gun when someone cuts you off in traffic.

In some ways, all the editorial hand-wringing over the state of civility in America is overwrought. Tennis star Serena Williams’ outburst wasn’t much different than a thousand other tirades we’ve seen from petulant athletes over the years. Rapper Kanye West’s upstaging of singer Taylor Swift at an awards show wasn’t out of line in a genre where arrogant behavior gives performers “street cred.” (Joe Wilson? We’ll get to him later.) And it’s not as if civility took a sudden downturn in America — it’s been sliding for years. In some cities, it’s the height of courtesy not to draw your gun when someone cuts you off in traffic.

More seriously though, the vitriol that’s been spewed in the health-care reform debate is a matter of real concern, marking an acceleration of the personal attacks launched by conservatives against Bill Clinton and by the left against George W. Bush. The great majority of opponents of President Obama’s policies are just that — opponents of his policies, not the man. However, there’s a significant number of Americans — and Holland area residents — who seem to believe that insults are a better way to argue public policy than actually talking about the policy itself. There’s plenty to oppose in President Obama’s policies, but these individuals prefer the nouns of name-calling to the verbs of persuasion. “Liar” and “socialist” are usually their mildest insults hurled at the president, with the letters and Web postings frequently moving up to “fascist” or “communist” (labels that show an appalling ignorance of the true meaning of those words and insult the millions of American who fought to protect their country against those threats). Meanwhile, liberals — getting a taste of what many in their ranks threw at President Bush — often respond in kind; it’s ironic how many comments we see from the left attacking “right-wing hatemongering” are equally hateful themselves.

One factor frequently cited for contributing to America’s growing incivility is the anonymity of the Internet, which makes it easy and risk-free for people to spread invective. Sentinel editors and Web staffers spend a lot of time and effort deleting the most egregious postings from the comments section on hollandsentinel.com. Dealing with uncivil behavior is one of the prices we must accept for providing a forum for the public, and it’s a constant struggle for us to strike the right balance.

Politics in America has been a rough-and-tumble affair since the time when Thomas Jefferson hired writers to smear George Washington and John Adams; it’s a not an endeavor for the thin-skinned. However, the current atmosphere is dangerous for two reasons.

First, the state of public discourse in America is poor enough as it is, wrapped in misconceptions and consultant-generated talking points than in real knowledge of the issues involved. Listening to all the yelling in the health-care reform debate has been like reading Web posts where angry writers capitalize every letter — it gets your attention, but it gets tiring fast, and it certainly doesn’t change anyone’s mind.

Second, when civility fades among people of privilege and responsibility — like TV hosts and members of Congress — it encourages even less civil behavior to come out of the closet. U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s heckling of President Obama in his recent address to Congress was clearly shameful and out of line, but in many ways the reaction to his outburst was worse. While he apologized for his actions, Wilson become a hero in certain right-wing circles and has been rewarded with more than $700,000 in campaign contributions. (He’s highly enough thought of that he’s coming to Michigan to stump for a congressional candidate in Jackson.) We generally count on at least the appearance of civility from our leaders to set the tone for the general population; we fear behavior like Wilson’s will empower more outrageous behavior. This is especially dangerous given the growing noise heard from white nationalists and other fringe groups that can’t come to grips with the fact that an increasingly diverse nation elected a biracial man as president with 53 percent of the vote; these groups don’t need inadvertent encouragement from the responsible majority.

The First Amendment doesn’t require our speech to be civil or polite — it’s designed to protect unpopular speech. But we do our country, and the causes we believe in, a disservice when we so easily resort to personal attacks. We’d like to think we live in a country where the questions of the day are decided by who has the best ideas, not by who yells the loudest.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.